From now on, the officials said, Israel’s ambassador to the UN organizations in Geneva will not appear before the council, answer any phone calls from the council, or cooperate with them in any way. The ambassador is not going to be withdrawn from Geneva, however, because there are a lot of other organizations that Israel does fully cooperate with and will continue to do so.

The official said that Israel will make efforts to get other countries on the council to follow suit, even though he acknowledged that this will be difficult.

US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro indicated empathy with Israel’s decision to leave the UNHRC. Speaking at Tel Aviv University on Monday afternoon, he said that the Council displays an obsessive anti-Israel focus and bias, Israel Radio reported.

Shapiro said the US participated in the Council to try to mitigate those biases and hypocrisies. The US was the only state on the Council to vote against the proposal to launch an investigation into Israel’s West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements.